This invention relates to an air direction control apparatus which permits the angle of louver slats at an air outlet of an air conditioner to be remotely controlled.
In general, an air conditioner has a louver equipped with a parallel array of swingable slats, at an air outlet of a body casing and, through the swing of these slats, it is possible to control an angle at which warm or cooling air is blown out through the parallel array of slats.
In this type of an air conditioner, a remote control operation is performed using an electromagnetic wave, ultrasonic wave, infrared ray, etc., in which case the parallel array of slats is swung during the continuous transmission of a control signal from a remote controller and stopped upon the interruption of such a control signal. In this connection it is to be noted that said control signal has a fixed frequency assigned for louver drive.
That is, during the period of a depression of a push button switch on the remote controller a control signal is delivered in a continuous fashion. During the period of the reception of the control signal the parallel array of slats can be continuously swung, on the air conditioner.
Upon the release of a push button switch on the remote controller the control signal is interrupted, stopping the driving operation of the louver and thus holding the parallel array of slats at that stopped position. In other words, the user can operate the louver while depressing the push button switch and stop the louver in a desired position upon the release of his finger off the push button switch.
In this system, however, the control signal has to be transmitted continuously during a time period from the ON to the OFF operation, presenting a problem of involving a greater dissipation power on the remote controller. In general, the remote controller is equipped with a dry cell and thus the power capacity is smaller. An increase in the power capacity involves a grave disadvantage of reducing a dry cell life and thus it finds no wider practical application.